1. Field of Invention
The invention generally relates to the area of controlling devices, and more particularly related to motion-sensitive controlling devices with the abilities of interpreting orientation invariant motion.
2. Related Art
The Nintendo Wii Remote™ wireless controller is an example of the most recent state of the art advances in user interactive controllers for computer display game systems. It is a movable wireless remote controller hand-held by a user. It uses a combination of built-in accelerometers and infrared detection to sense its position in a 3D space when pointed at LEDs within the reach of a sensor bar. This design allows users to control a game using physical gestures as well as traditional button presses. The controller connects to a console using Bluetooth and features rumble as well as an internal speaker. As a user moves the controller in reacting to a display, the controller transmits motion data to the console via conventional short range wireless RF transmissions to simulate interactions of the users with the game being displayed. The detail on such a type of controllers is described in Published U.S. Application US2007/0060384, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
One restriction in using such a controller is that a user has to hold the controller in a particular way so that physical gestures of the user could be reasonably interpreted. To enforce such holding patterns, the controller is designed in an elongated rectangular shape with most buttons on one side and a trigger on the other side such that a natural grip of the controller by a user orients the controller in a consistent way in his/her hand while other grips feel uncomfortable or do not provide ready access to the buttons or trigger. Consistent grips of the controller result in relatively consistent data from the internal accelerometers when a particular motion is made.
In reality or other applications, controllers may come in different physical designs. Users prefer to have a certain degree of freedom to hold a controller. As a result, the physical design of a controller may not lead a user to hold the controller in a consistent way. Examples include a controller whose physical form is essentially cylindrical—motion sensitive controllers in the shape of magic wands, “light-sabers”, microphones, swords, whips, drum-sticks, batons and so on. In each case, a natural grip of such a controller lends no preference of orientation of the internal motion sensors about the length of the controller. Because identical motions of differently oriented controllers result in different motion sensor readings, the task of interpreting the readings for many applications is more difficult. In addition, it is problematic for systems (such as LiveMove) that interpret the readings from a controller and determine the type of motion that was made. Moves such as whip, upper-cut, thrust, fore-hand, back-hand, are examples of types of motions that can be differentiated through the data generated by a motion sensitive controller in order to allow a user to affect control over an in-game avatar. In cases where there is no preference of orientation of the controller in the user's grip, it is desirable for such systems to be able to cope with the data generated by the various possible grips.